


To The Last

by Beldam



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 20:29:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beldam/pseuds/Beldam
Summary: For the sake of his family's future, Shimada Hanzo makes a choice.This time around, Genji does the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In addition to standing on its own, this also serves as backstory for [R!Genji.](http://reversewatch.tumblr.com/tagged/genji)  
> The entirety of this story was written to [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOy1esPEc08)

The decision has been made for two months now.

Genji wonders why it is taking so long. When he first overheard Hanzo accept the Elder’s ultimatum in the dead of night, their shadows rattling the shoji across the hall, he expected the axe to fall within the week. That certainly would have been the kind thing to do after Genji’s first staunch refusal to join Hanzo at the head of the clan--especially with Shimada men being as stubborn as they are. Instead, cruelly, foolishly, Hanzo has dragged it out, and out, and out, torturing them both. Only delaying that which has become inevitable.

Even so, Genji knows it can’t be much longer now. The tension that has plagued the castle since their father passed has started to unravel, not so much disappearing as turning into _something else_. Servants have started giving Genji a wide berth. The Elders no longer look him in the eye. He recognizes it as the emotion he felt kneeling at his father’s sickbed, staring at the tatami, refusing to move his hands from where they twisted on his lap; the aversion of people towards a thing that is about to die.

Even Hanzo’s demeanor has changed. Where he used to proselytize to Genji nearly every day, his expression burning with the desperate ferocity of someone trapped, now he hardly mentions it except to remark in passing how _selfish_ Genji is for letting things go this far. The last week or so has been the worst, and the two have barely spoken at all. Everything that they could say has long been said—and when they cross paths, they do so in sullen, resigned silence, both of them knowing in their own secret ways that the end is drawing near.

Hanzo begins carrying his katana everywhere he goes in the castle (even though he had always scolded Genji for taking his anywhere other than training grounds or sanctioned jobs). His hand never leaves the pommel, even when he walks, when he eats. When he looks at Genji, sometimes, his eyes will glaze over, and there will be a short, metallic _shck_ as he thumbs the blade briefly from the scabbard before letting it hiss quietly back into place.

Maybe it is because Genji has been afraid for so long—maybe it is because he has not slept in so many weeks, has barely eaten over the last few days—that he finds himself numb to the knowledge that Hanzo is going to kill him soon. There was a time he could have changed things—if he had been less prideful, or less cowardly, he could have put this to bed right at the start. But the time for that has passed. For Genji, there is no future anymore. He is dead if he stays. He is dead if he runs away. He is dead, even, if he finally bends to Hanzo’s exhortations—because one day, Genji will step out of line a second time, and if Hanzo is willing to kill him now, he will be willing to kill him again. At night when he is restless (for he is always restless) and he goes and looks beyond the castle to the infinite sprawl of city tumbling out beneath--the black buildings, the lights like stars--he feels that the entire world gapes ahead of him, beckoning him down; the starving maw of an open, unfed tomb.

Genji knows it can only wait so long. One way or another, one of them must go.

On the day, the final day, Genji rises from his futon at dawn. He changes his clothes. He combs his hair. He goes to the dojo for practice, but he leaves his bokken and takes his katana instead.

He feels heavy as he walks across the garden. Every step he takes seems like it will split the earth. Around him, the sky, the trees, the castle walls seem to bow with the weight of what is to come. The Universe is noisy with prophecy.

 _This is the end._ He feels it in his bones. The blades of grass beneath his feet. The light that spears his shoulder blades. _This is the end._

He pulls open the shoji to enter the dojo—and is not surprised to see Hanzo there, back turned on Genji as he stares at the painting near the ceiling, the twin dragons from their father’s stories twined in an azure sky. Something stings at Genji's heart; his affection for his family, for his brother, for his home, the closeness he feels with this place and everyone in it. Why, he wonders, do things have to be this way? Why is this the only option left for them, when they are all they have left in the world? He doesn't want his father's empire--but, he realizes with a pang of misery, he also doesn't want money or alcohol or women or men. All he wants is Hanzo. He wants to be able to talk to him again. To spar with him. To rope him into playing videogames in the wee hours of the morning. He wants to have his brother back, though it's a futile wish, he knows. They are, the both of them, too far gone for that.

Genji lingers at the entryway, unwilling to approach, unable to leave. Though he has to know that Genji is there, Hanzo doesn’t turn to him or speak. Sunlight encroaches on the dim entryway and Genji’s shadow unfurls along the tatami, nearly touching his brother’s feet. Birds begin to sing outside, but the two of them have no words. Theirs is the silence of the grave.

Eventually, Hanzo sighs deeply. He lowers his head.

“I will only ask you one more time,” he says. His voice is quiet, but it cuts through the room as if tempered by the same fire that forged the sword he carries on his hip. “Please, Genji. I cannot be responsible for what will happen if you do not reconsider now.”

As he talks, Hanzo’s hand drifts up his side and squeezes at the hilt of his katana; Genji finds he must fight down a strange, delirious urge to laugh. It occurs to him that it doesn’t matter how he answers now. The decision has been made.

“The clan is yours now,” the younger Shimada rasps. “Whatever becomes of me, isn’t that solely up to you?”

“Only a _disgrace_ like you--” Hanzo shoulders stiffen. Genji hears him inhale noisily through his teeth. “Only someone like you,” he tries again, gentle but caustic, “would believe one man’s will could ever be the only one that mattered.”

Genji opens his mouth, trying to think of something meaningful to say. All he manages is to lamely mutter, “Yeah. Guess you’re right.”

He wonders if he’ll remember that, in a year or two or ten (if he survives past today). If he’ll look back on this moment and laugh at his own ineptitude. The way he couldn’t tell Hanzo what he wanted, now of all times, when it actually mattered.  If he’ll regret it. If he’ll hate himself for not saying it, on top of everything else. His lip trembles.

“Hey, Hanzo,” he whispers.

“ _What_ , Genji.”

“I—” His voice breaks—even though now is not the time. Not the time for weakness, or worse yet, for compassion. This is life or death. If he does not act now, this is the beginning of the end of him. But even still, he cannot force them down, the words that thunder with his love for his brother: “I don’t want to do this.”

Hanzo lets out a vicious, incredulous laugh.

“I know,” he says, misunderstanding what Genji means, and it is fitting because he has _always_ been incapable of understanding Genji. “You have said it a thousand times. I _know._ ” Hanzo shakes his head bitterly, disgusted. Helpless. “But that changes nothing, does it, Brother?”

Genji looks up, and sees the dragon brothers painted high above. Beautiful and calm above the mountains—not knowing, as he does, that they will kill each other soon. His fingers wind around the hilt of his katana, and he feels it in full force, the resentment he has forged in the two months leading up to now, the anger, the hatred, the spite. If he survives past today, he decides, then this is what he will dedicate to memory. Cruel Hanzo. Heartless Hanzo. Hanzo, his enemy, his would-be executioner. If they were ever brothers, if they were ever _friends_ , then they have left that all in the past. 

He clenches his teeth and inhales.

“No,” Genji agrees. “It doesn’t.”

It has been a long time since Genji has killed someone—and in the meantime, he has forgotten how _soft_ people are. When he brings his sword down on Hanzo’s shoulder, a part of him expects it to stop long before it does any real damage, or to glance right off him, as if his body was made of stone. But the blade goes and keeps on going, slicing almost to the center of his chest.

The noise Hanzo makes—the _pain_ —Genji keeps hearing it even after it stops, even when Hanzo spins on him, already drenched in his own blood, sword finally drawn.

There is a moment where they only stare at each other, Hanzo gasping, already on the brink of death. Genji squints, wonders where it’s coming from—the shock in his brother’s eyes. The look of betrayal. As if he wasn’t going to do the same at any moment. As if it isn’t his fault that things have come to this. The younger brother shifts his stance. The elder does the same. Their bodies wind tight, getting ready to spring--and then they let loose.

In a blink, they have closed in on each other. They summon their dragons to their swords at the same instant; the blades meet, but instead of spitting sparks, they erupt with fire. It catches on the tatami, the lanterns, spreads as soon as it has fallen. The room blazes blue and green before sweltering with the orange of their clan. 

As they fight, Genji realizes anew that Hanzo is better than him. That Hanzo has always been better than him. The way he moves, the way his katana slices Genji’s skin even when he thinks he’s dodged, the way he predicts Genji’s every step and stab; if Genji had given him the chance, Hanzo would have destroyed him. But the first blow was too strong, and in minutes, Hanzo is faltering. He wheezes. His pace slows. His blows weaken. Genji’s sword finds its mark again, and again, and again, forcing him to the back of the dojo. The fire licks at him, laps up his blood. Hanzo cannot possibly win, but of course, he cannot go down without a struggle--not with Shimada men being as stubborn as they are. 

Genji (carelessly, always so quick on the draw) slashes Hanzo with a wide arc of his blade, cutting his brother's face from mouth to ear. His motion stutters (even weakened, he is startled that Hanzo has let him strike his head) and he realizes late that he has left himself wide open. He can't dodge, can't block. It happens too fast. Surreally, he doesn't even see Hanzo’s blade as it cuts diagonally across his stomach, pushing deep, nicking his ribs on one end, his pelvis on the other--but he _feels_ it.

His insides heave, threatening to spill. He gurgles and stumbles back, giving his brother space. Immediately, he knows that the injury is near fatal. If it isn’t treated immediately, he will die. But the door is right behind him, and he can retreat—while Hanzo is trapped at the end of the room, fire gnawing away at the tatami in front of him and gnashing at the wall at his back. There is nowhere for him to go.

Blood pours out of Genji's mouth as he abandons his sword on the mat.

 _It’s over._ He turns, and cradling his stomach in his arms, he limps out into the daylight. He tries to think over the howl Hanzo let out when he first struck him, still ringing in his ears. _All of it—all of it is over now._

But behind him he hears it (though it should be impossible over the inferno’s roar). His brother’s voice, choked with pain and smoke, follows him out, saying one word: “Genji.”

Heat evaporates the tears that threaten to spill from Genji’s eyes. The dojo exhales flame into the garden. Cherry trees catch and burn. Around him, he hears yelling, and bodies rush past him, shouting in a language that sounds terrifying and alien, none of it recognizable as Japanese.

His brother’s voice is louder than them all, coming from everywhere, pouring the world into his name. “Genji!”

Genji bleeds onto the dirt. Inside him, fire roils. He stumbles forth, into the castle. 

He doesn’t dare look back.


End file.
